Car-mounted image recording apparatus and image recording method

1. A car-mounted image recording apparatus comprising: an imager operable to take a moving image of an outside scene of a vehicle; an imaging point storage operable to preliminarily store the position of a specified imaging point, and a position detector operable to detect a present position of the vehicle, an image quality controller operable to determine an importance of the present position of the vehicle, and control an image quality of the moving image on the basis of the importance; and an image recorder operable to compress the taken moving image so as to obtain the image quality controlled by the image quality controller, and record the compressed image in a recording medium, wherein the image quality controller determines (i) a degree of approach to the imaging point on the basis of (a) the present position of the vehicle detected by the position detector and (b) the position of the specified imaging point stored in the imaging point storage, and (ii) the importance of the present position on the basis of the degree of approach, wherein the imaging point storage stores an altitude of the imaging point, and wherein the image quality controller does not change the image quality of the moving image according to the degree of approach when the altitude difference of the present position and the imaging point is not less than a specified distance.

2. A car-mounted image recording apparatus comprising: an imager operable to take a moving image of the outside scene of a vehicle; an imaging point storage operable to preliminarily store the position of a specified imaging point, and a position detector operable to detect a present position of the vehicle, an image quality controller operable to determine an importance of the present position of the vehicle, and control an image quality of the moving image on the basis of the importance; and an image recorder operable to compress the taken moving image so as to obtain the image quality controlled by the image quality controller, and record the compressed image in a recording medium, wherein the image quality controller determines (i) a degree of approach to the imaging point on the basis of (a) the present position of the vehicle detected by the position detector and (b) the position of the specified imaging point stored in the imaging point storage, and (ii) the importance of the present position on the basis of the degree of approach, and wherein the image quality controller controls the image quality of the moving image to be the lowest quality, regardless of the degree of approach to the imaging point, when the vehicle speed is 0 km/h consecutively for a specified time.